daeuArt Notes

I’ve been posting about daeuArt Notes on Instagram and other places lately, and I am taking this opportunity to tell you more about it…what it’s about and how it started. At this point, I am obsessed with them, and I hope you find them interesting.

So what are the daeuArt notes?

daeuArt Notes collection is a digital art collection where I transform sounds into visual art. Hense notes – as in musical notes. I’m taking sound waves or heat maps of the sound waves and then abstracting them to create visual art. I am keeping the frequency of the sound the same – only working with what’s there already and outlining it. It’s not just music; it’s spoken word, nature sounds, mechanical noises, and anything I find interesting; I would record and play with it until I get something I like. Often there are many versions of the same sound, but it’s not done until I feel it’s done.

I love switching the senses in this way, like synesthesia, from hearing something to seeing it instead. I’ve always found synesthesia incredibly fascinating. When you perceive something through one of your senses, it comes out through another sense, like hearing shapes or tasting something when you read a word. But that’s not where the inspiration actually came from even though I knew about it before. It influenced me a little bit – indirectly. I think.

The first daeuArt Note happened quite by accident. My daughter asked me to paint something for her room. I said okay, thinking I’ll make an oil painting. So for a while, nothing was happening. She’d ask me about it sometimes but I had nothing. More time goes by – she asks again, and I still haven’t made a thing.

I was struggling to develop a good concept. I wasn’t worried about how I would make it; I was concerned about what it would say. After all, I paint ideas. I don’t paint flowers. I don’t do landscape or portraits. I don’t. I’m not saying that’s not worthy of making. It’s just not me.  I was struggling to come up with an idea that has meaning for her and I wanted it to be perfect. What is that idea? What am I trying to say here? I wasn’t sure.

When my daughter came to me again and asked about her painting I said the most unfortunate 5-word combination I could have come up with at that moment.
I said, “I need to be inspired.” You can imagine her reaction. She gave me a look that said, “What… I am not inspiring to you? Really?!”Needless to say, it didn’t go well.

I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that I didn’t have the idea. I still needed to develop a concept and wrap my head around it. As I mentioned already, I am not painting landscapes in the meadow somewhere having a picnic. Art impacts and transforms me just as much as the other way around. It’s so crucial for me to get it right. I have to see it in my mind.

More time goes by. Still Nothing. She’s given up on me by now.

One day I was editing my podcast. I hear a little click of a mouse in the recording. I can really hear it. Probably, nobody would even notice it, but I did. So I had to fix it.  Listening is such an intimate experience. I am grateful to my listeners and I want to make sure I give them the best possible experience. Little click was layered under the sound of my voice, so tough to isolate. I am staring at this waveform, looking for the click – I find it, fix it, and the idea pops into my head for my daughter’s painting.

What if I recorded myself saying “I love you, Beautiful”? “Beautiful” because her name is Bella, and that’s what I call her. “I love you” because that’s all it matters. And then what if i used the waveform as a composition for my oil painting? Oil is my medium. Except for digital extensions,  putting art on a continuum or videos – oil is all I do.

What ended up happening was that I took an image of a heat map of that waveform of my voice saying I love you beautiful and started playing with it on my phone – abstracting it, changing different properties of the image, etc. And that’s how the first daeuArt Note was born.

It was fascinating – you could see all syllables, you could see a young girl — as if the intention of the recording was carried into the sound and then carried over into the image.

Once I saw this, I became curious whether or not other sounds would be the same – have intention embedded into the image. If I do a singing bowl, my dog barking, another piece of dialog, or a love note, can you see what the sound is about without hearing it?

The New Obsession

That’s when I became totally obsessed. I started recording everything and turning it into art.

I became obsessed with the notion that sound carries the intention, or maybe emotion, energy. I wanted to test the theory and see if it held water… I started recording literally every sound that I thought was interesting.

First, I recorded Ms. Bailey, my yellow lab puppy. I was teaching her the speak command at the time, and she was getting it. So I recorded her. No surprise – the image of her bark had an outline of a dog sideways. That became Ms. Bailey Speaks.

Leave Me Alone!

Then I asked my husband to record something for me to turn into art. To that, he said “Leave Me Alone!” I thought perfect! Leave me alone! I told him – you have to record that. So I dragged him up into the studio, and he recorded it; I had to direct him a bit to give it more intensity. That became Leave Me Alone. You can see this angry person with shades of yellow and red — really remnants from the heat map, but it was perfect.

Marina

The only person who volunteered her services with excitement to me was, of course, my mom. “What do you want? Accordion, piano, violin, what kind of noise you want me to make? Let’s do it!” – she said, spoken like a true artist. Ha! Anything for art. She played an Italian love song, Marina, on her accordion. That became Marina. That recording is a little bit longer, about a min, so the image is wide. Usually, it’s less than 30sec worth of recording, which makes an excellent aspect ratio. With Marina – you can see almost a timeline of their romance unfolding.

So now I am hooked. I never know what will show up – it’s surprising and delightful, and sometimes I get chills just looking at it because inevitably the intention is baked into the image. Every.single.time.

I recorded wind and birds chirping, the mechanical sound of a broken car, a symphony of frogs… Literally, anything that grabs my attention. There are million and one ideas. I walk around town and as soon as something peeks my interest I immediately grab my phone and record it. Everything can be an inspiration for art.

At the minute, I am loving the sounds of New York City. Talking about the inspiration around every corner.

Waiting for 6 Train Uptown

I’m waiting for the train, and this guy walks by and goes “Hey star shoes”. I was wearing Converse platforms with the star on the back. I go “Hey” and give him a nod. Then I realize that he is a subway musician and he was about to set up shop. So I thought this is a perfect opportunity for a new daeuArt Note. He starts to play James Brown – and he was so good. I walk over and start recording. At that moment the train comes thundering in and sort of drowns out James Brown there. But that’s the sound of the Waiting for 6 Train Uptown. The image has in fact, a shape of a tunnel which is so cool, like a subway station. Remember – this is just abstracting the waveform captured. I am not manipulating it – just working with what I have. It’s wild.

Sax At The Met

A recording of another street musician in NYC playing his saxophone in front of The Met museum became Sax at The Met. That one looks more like a cityscape. I guess the sound bounces off different objects in the environment and reveals it in the sound recording.

I also recorded the fountains in front of The Met, but haven’t done that one yet. Coming soon! And many more.

daeuart Notes Collection pieces are not for sale. They are primarily for me working through an obsession and observing what the world around me sounds like and looks like.

However, I do offer commissions to turn your recording into art – 1 out 1 original – and see what it reveals. One of those is Je’Taime. My client recorded a message to her husband for their anniversary, then I took it, added some of my magic to it and it became a unique anniversary gift. Je T’aime is full of harts, stacked and there is a pause – a gap in the image – before she declares Je T’aime at the end. I am so not romantic by any stretch of the imagination, but this one gave me chills. And she liked it.

If you want one send me an email and I will take it from there!